Zopa Lobbies For Peer-to-Peer Loans To Go In Pension Pots
My Google Alert for Zopa picked up this article from Yahoo, who got it from the Telegraph.
The title of this post and the Yahoo article says it all.
If pension pots end up in Zopa and the other sound peer-to-peer lenders, just what is this going to do for banks, as it will probably mean that all the decent personal loan business in their hands will go to the peer-to-peer lenders.
I wouldn’t think bank shares look to be a good long term investment.
The growth of Zopa might have an interesting side effect. Imagine a group of friends having a quiet drink in a pub and one of their number turns up in a shiny new car. On discussing the purchase, the buyer reveals they bought it with a Zopa loan, that they got at a good rate, because they have a good credit rating. So will their jealous friends, decide to do something about their dodgy finance, so they too, can have a decent set of wheels.
Peer pressure can work in mysterious ways.
If it does encourage people to clean up their finances, Zopa will have achieved something, that financial commentators and politicians have been trying to do for years!
I think too, that Zopa, which has just lent its billionth pound, is now getting too big for politicians to stop or even nationalise. Which probably means that money in Zopa is even more secure.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles
To put it mildly Ipswich have had some rubbish on loan from various Premier League clubs in the past.
But Ainsley Maitland-Niles is in a different class.
He has all the skills and he has that added factor that so many youngsters don’t seem to possess – Keenness to get on with the game. And not in a selfish way!
For Ipswich’s first goal yesterday against Burnley, he brought the ball forward to the edge of the penalty area. Most players would have shot from distance, but he saw that Brett Pitman was free on his right and he was able to put the ball across goal for Freddie Sears to slot in.
But don’t take my word for the quality of his performance! These two paragraphs from the report in the East Anglian Daily Times describe his part in the two goals.
After Maitland-Niles’ pass into the channel, Pitman steered a low cross towards the back post and Sears only had to provide the slightest of touches inside the six yard box to help the ball on its way into the bottom corner.
One-nil became 2-0 five minutes later in the most simple of fashions; McGoldrick barely having to jump to head home Maitland-Niles’ corner from around eight yards out.
And this is Mick McCarthy’s view in an article on the BBC web site.
Read it all!
We’ve not seen a youngster of this class, wearing the blue of Ipswich since Kieron Dyer.
ollybars At The Reilly Rocket
The Reilly Rocket is a cafe on my walking route home from Dalston Junction station and the Kingsland High Road, that I occasionally use for a small refreshment.
Today I popped in and found they were promoting ollybars on the counter.
So I ate one with my pot of English breakfast tea and took another home for later.
At two quid they may be more expensive than say EatNakd bars, but they are very good.
Too many gluten-free snacks are either bland or have the texture of sawdust.
ollybars are not guilty of either fault.
Congratulations to Olly!
The Easiest Way To Get To Ipswich For Tuesday Night Football
Tuesday night football at Ipswich, and probably Colchester, is a difficult and overly expensive journey, when you have to trouble out for a kick-off at 19:45 using the crowded trains of the rush hour, which charge you more for your pleasure.
Normally if I want to go to Ipswich on a Saturday, it costs me £26.25 for an Off Peak Return from Liverpool Street with a Senior Railcard. But last night, on a Tuesday it would have cost me £50.65.
But Crossrail has come into play with the takeover of the Shenfield Metro by TfL Rail, which means I can use my Freedom Pass to Shenfield for nothing. Younger people, using Oyster or contactless cards have seen a reduction in cost, which some publicity claims is 40%.
So last night, as I had to stop off at Forest Gate on the way, I took TfL Rail to Shenfield in the rush hour.
I then exited the station, had a coffee in one of several nice independent cafes around the station and then re-entered after buying a return ticket from Shenfield to Ipswich, which got me to the ground at a convenient time for the match.
It was all very civilised and for most of the way, I had a seat and was able to sit comfortably and read the paper, as most of the other passengers had departed by Witham.
And for this I paid the princely sum of £16.75, which is approximately a third of the regular price. Here’s the proof.
London To Ipswich For £16.75
I shall be going this way again, especially as I have friends in Shenfield, with whom I could share a drink.
This is a substantial benefit to anybody living in London with a Freedom Pass, who needs to go to anywhere in the South Eastern portion of East Anglia.
You’ve always been able to buy tickets from the Zone 6 Boundary, but the trouble with that is Harold Wood, which isn’t as well connected as Shenfield. You also have difficulty buying these tickets on-line and usually have to go to a booking office.
If you don’t have a Freedom Pass, using contactless cards to Shenfield on TfL Rail and then using an onward ticket from Shenfield may well be cheaper for the whole journey.
Of course, if you bought your onward ticket from Shenfield before you travelled, all you would do is get off one train at Shenfield and get on another to your ultimate destination.
The only drawback is that the journey via Shenfield is slower.
Currently, Ipswich is about 70 minutes from Liverpool Street, but when the Norwich in Ninety improvements are completed, I think we could see this time reduced to 60 minutes or even less. New trains with sliding doors would help too!
Shenfield is 43 minutes from Liverpool Street at the moment, but Crossrail will reduce this by a couple of minutes. Ipswich is probably an hour past Shenfield, but Norwich in Ninety must reduce this.
The biggest change could come when Crossrail opens and there is a new East Anglian rail franchise. If I was bidding for the new franchise, I would stop a proportion of the fast London-Colchester-Ipswich-Norwich trains at Stratford, Romford or Shenfield to interface with Crossrail, so that the journeys for passengers were optimised to get as many on board as possible., to maximise my company’s profits and hopefully my bonus.
Norwich in Ninety plus Crossrail can only mean that house prices in East Anglia will continue to rise.
My Credit/Charge Cards Got Cloned
I use an American Express Charge Card for my travel, for the insurance and also because, if I know I’m picking up rail tickets, I don’t have to think which card I’m using. It is contactless, so I kep it separate from my Freedom Pass to avoid card class and often I don’t take it out with me.
I also have a John Lewis Partnership Card, which I use for everyday purchases and on-line, as it doesn’t use that non-protection system Verified by Visa, which is a pain in the arse.
Over the last two weeks, both have been cloned and used online for substantial purchases. With both cards, the fraud protection systems at the card companies picked up the illegal uses and the cards were stopped , causing me the hassle of having to update various web sites, where the card is stored.
So how did the cards get cloned?
I’m not sure, but both of the card statements often come in the post on the same day. I doubt it’s anything to do with the Royal Mail, although because they are moving buildings in the main sorting office that serves me, there has been a couple of things that have gone astray or turned up late.
Normally, when the statement arrives, I put it by my computer and pay it the next time, that I go on-line. I then shred the statements.
But I’ve been away a lot in the last month or two and I’ve had builders around, which caused the shredder to be out-of-use for a time.
So perhaps I was less than zealous in shredding a statement!
I suspect that as I put the green sacks for recycling outside late on a Wednesday night, someone has been raking them over and removing ones that might be promising
One thing I have done is make the American Express card paperless, so there is nothing incriminating from that going in the rubbish.
Unfortunately, the John Lewis card has no paperless facility and as it is not contactless, I am seriously thinking of giving it the order of the boot. It will certainly be going into temporary retirement.
In fact, I would say don’t get a new credit card unless the following conditions apply.
- The card’s call centre and processing is based in the UK.
- All statements can be paperless.
- Past statements are available on-line in an easily readable form.
- Cards are contactless.
I think contactless cards are important. Most contactless payments are in big retailers or in London on transport. Transactions are probably caught on CCTV and there is often no handy piece of paper that could be taken by untrustworthy staff. The twenty pound limit also means that you can’t use them for the sort of purchases criminals like.
I have worked on very secure projects in the past and only access my bank accounts from one computer that never leaves my house.
People ask me if I would use ApplePay or the future AndroidPay. I certainly would, as if say the system was cloned and I lost money, Apple or Google would be finished. Until proven otherwise, I feel that they are more secure than contactless cards.
If you worry about contactless cards, just reflect on the fact, that I have been unable to find any negative comment about their use on London’s transport system, which is one of the largest contactless card-based systems in the world. There are so many out there who hate Boris with an absolute passion, that if anything had happened, it would be repeated ad infinitum.
The weak link in all these systems isn’t the technology, it’s the fact that we do stupid things, like drop our phone or card (Guilty, as charged!) and that criminals end up in retailers and card companies in positions, where they have access to sensitive data.
How can you be sure, that the nice man in the corner hardware store hasn’t taken your card details and sold them on to someone, who has the knowledge to take card numbers, expiry dates and names and addresses to defraud on-line retailers and service providers?
The Smart Money’s On Isis Destroying Itself
This is the headline on a serious piece in the Times by Ed Conway, which talks about Islamic State and there adoption of gold as their currency!
If you can get a copy of yesterday’s Times read it.
There’s more details here in Wikipedia.
Ed’s piece is a fascinating article and it shows how crazy these cruel male chauvinist pigs are!
I know we have problems with our current monetary standard, but no serious central banker or politician would suggest opting for a metal based currency.
I wonder what Islamic State think of bitcoins?
We Don’t Fight Wars Like That Anymore!
There is an obituary in The Times today of John Campbell, who won a Military Cross and Bar, whilst serving in Popski’s Private Army, which was officially the No 1 Demolition Squadron and a unit of British Special Forces in World War II.
I grew up just after the Second World War and just as newspapers today, use the actions of C-list celebrities, in those days, Sunday papers like the Express and Dispatch, were full of tales of derring-do, as the Nazis and the Japanese were eventually defeated.
As my next door neighbour, a sometime Colonel in the Engineers, once said, there’s only one rule in the British Army – In case of War, ignore the rule books.
Vladimir Peniakoff or Popski wrote them.
We probably can’t do what he did these days, when we’re trying to curb the atrocities of groups like Islamic State, but I’m sure he’d have had an innovative solution.
This paragraph from the Wikipedia entry for the PPA is informative.
PPA was unusual in that all officer recruits reverted to lieutenant on joining, and other ranks reverted to private. The unit was run quite informally: there was no saluting and no drill, officers and men messed together, every man was expected to know what to do and get on with it, and there was only one punishment for failure of any kind: immediate Return To Unit. It was also efficient, having an unusually small headquarters.
Isn’t that how you’d run a company to develop new technology?
Is My Life Going Round In A Curious Circle?
In the 1970s, my late wife; Celia and myself lived, with our then three sons, on the eleventh floor of Cromwell Tower in the Barbican.
The shops in those days in the area were not very numerous and with the exception of the excellent market in Whitecross Street, getting everything we needed wasn’t easy. There was no supermarket, unlike today where there is a Waitrose in Whitecross Street.
So often on a Saturday, we’d take the boys up the hill to the Angel and shop in the Marks and Spencer and the Woolworths in Liverpool Road opposite the Underground station.
I’ve since found out that the Marks at the Angel is a long-established store and it may have been the one my grandmother spoke about, that she used around the time of the First World War, when she and her family lived just down from the Angel by the Regent’s Canal.
Woollies went a few years ago and much to the regrets of many of the locals is now a Waitrose.
My friends, who knew Celia, and myself often share a laugh over the fact that when I can get it, I drink a Czech gluten-free lager called Celia. A few weeks ago, I heard that the beer will be stocked in Waitrose, so I wrote to them asking where it will be stocked locally. This is an extract from their reply.
I’ve looked into this and I’m pleased to tell you that this should be available at both our Islington and Barbican branches from tomorrow.
As these are two branches, that we would have walked past together in the 1970s, long before they opened, I just can’t help thinking that life is truly strange!
Could anybody, who spots Celia lager in their local Waitrose please let me know?
Thanks!
Gluten-Free Food On The NHS
As a coeliac, I get no food from the NHS.
If you take bread as an example, I get through a couple of slices a day, usually spread with honey, in a sandwich or as something to eat with say hummus.
If I was to get this bread on the NHS, a month’s worth would leave me with no space in the freezer and I’d have to defrost each slice as I needed it.
Also, the bread from Marks and Spencer is far superior to anything available on the NHS.
I probably spend about a fiver on specialist gluten-free food every week, but mainly I eat the sort of food, that is naturally gluten-free, like meat, fish, vegetables and fruit.
A more cost-effective system would be that all coeliacs got a monthly payment to help with food costs. If they spent it on cigarettes, then that is their affair!
So what do I think are the best gluten-free foods?
Bananas – A snack in its own wrapper.
Beans
Black Farmer Sausages – Made for real men
Celia gluten-free beer
EatNakd Bars
Eat Natural Toasted Muesli With Vine Fruit – Not the Buckwheat!
Eggs
Fish – Always skinless and boneless
Goats Milk – It lasts forever in the fridge
Honey
Leeks
Marks & Spencer’s Beefburgers –
Marks & Spencer’s Bread – It’s all excellent
Marks & Spencer’s Calves Liver – All that B12
Marks & Spencer’s Still Lemonade – I use it to clear my throat of catarrh
Marks & Spencer’s Welsh Goats Cheese
New Potatoes – I use them as nibbles too!
Rachel’s Yoghurt with Honey – It doubles as a quick pasta sauce!
Rice
Strawberries
Tea
Tomatoes
Rump Steak – Always top quality
Waitrose Chicken Breast Chunks – So many simple meals start with these!
Waitrose Prepared Mango, Melon and Pineapple
Whisky – Scotch or Irish
I do tend to buy food that doesn’t need preparation, as my knife skills aren’t that good and being on Warfarin, I don’t want to cut myself. I also buy the Waitrose prepared fruit, as to buy a whole mango, melon or pineapple would mean I would waste a lot.
I should say I don’t need to live frugally, but if I had to, I could fund my energy, water, Council Tax, phone and daily food from well within my State Pension. Obviously, I get travel in Greater London free and I don’t have a car
From Walthamstow To Hackney
The space in the East of London up the Lea Valley between Walthamstow and Hackney is all grass, scrub, reservoirs, canals, rivers and railways.
These pictures were taken on a train between Walthamstow James Street and Clapton stations.
It is a very underused area and lies just to the south of the proposed Walthamstow Wetlands. The only development that will happen here is to reinstate the Hall Farm Curve to enable trains from Walthamstow and Chingford to join the Lea Valley Line to Lea Bridge and Stratford. It will probably end up though, ringed by high-rise housing, like you can see along the River Lea.
London is a surprising city. Soon it will be a City with a world-class nature reserve just a few minutes from the business heart of the City, This is a Google Map of the area.
Walthamstow To Hackney
Note the two rail lines crossing in the middle. The route of the Hall Farm Curve can be made out, as it hugs the boundary of the unmanaged area.
At the top of the picture you can see the filter beds of Thames Water’s giant water factory, that provide a lot of London with water using the massive reservoirs of the Lea Valley, some of which will form part of the Walthamstow Wetlands.
If you take a train from Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport or Cambridge, you’ll come over the River Lea and then take the curve to join the main line before passing through the Walthamstow Wetlands and stopping at Tottenham Hale.
The Anonymous Widower 